I want to discus these questions with you, if you will allow me. The reason I would like to do so is because I feel no rancor or threat myself about discussions of sociobiology and I don't want you to feel as if I am attacking you personally in any way. I am perplexed and I don't quite understand your point of view. If you wish to continue this discussion either on-list or off-list I wouldn't mind either way.
It is not that I am trying to "win" an argument, I simply can't understand why you have come to the conclusions you have come to and why you think sociobiology is politically threatening, when applied in the narrow way I advocate.
There is a book I have read called "Army Ants: The Biology of Social Predation" by William H. Gotwald, Jr. It is well researched and it draws important conclusions about the various species that engage in social predation. It comes to conclusions about social predation, habitat variance, and ecological niches, and how they all interact to evolve different types of army ant "social structure." It details the differences in army ants lifeways and often through detailed analysis and comparison between species it tries to shows how these differences evolved. Through and through it is sociobiology. It is not controversial in its overall view and the general framework is accepted by practically everyone working in the field. In short, sociobiology when used this way is the best theory.
Do you reject the theory when used in this way? If you do then on what grounds? Or perhaps you know someone who can explain to me why I should reject sociobiology as applied by Gotwald and other scientists when studying the kinds of social structures they study. So when you say that, "Sociobiology is ideology in scientific garb." do you mean to include in the compass of your statement, the hundreds and hundreds of studies on social insects also? A great many of these studies are based on a sociobiological premise, and they are accepted as legitimate research and are often considered successful explanatory projects by those who care about such things. Are you rejecting (probably) most of the scientists in this field? I think, at this point, that the burden of proof is on those who will ask me to reject this reasonable and overwhelming research. I can only conclude, one of the following, when you say that sociobiology is "not circumscribed by 'evidence'": you are either saying this because you don't know how sociobiology is applied in such studies; or because you only mean this statement to apply to the few circumstances when sociobiology is applied to the human species; or because you have a particular idea of "evidence" that I don't comprehend. It is also possible that you do know how sociobiology is applied in the situations I mentioned above and you have a deeper criticism of sociobiology that I also don't comprehend.
In the end the theoretical project that is sociobiology may fail, even the areas of study where I think it has obtained some good success, ie. the social insects. If it does fail it will be because a better theory comes along. Right now, in the limited area of the social insects, I think sociobiology provides the best explanations for the evolution of the diverse species we confront. Louis, will you at least concede that I _might_ be correct here?
I find myself in an amusing position of defending sociobiology on this list. I have had one long discussion with E.O Wilson, and I doubt that he remembers me, but if he did I think that he would be surprised that I would be considered a defender of the sociobiological research program. Yet in a limited way I am. Generally I agree with much of the criticism of sociobiology as a theory made by S.J. Gould, H. Allen Orr, Lewontin, Jerry Fodor, and many of the criticisms in such books as "Vaulting Ambition," etc. A lot of this criticism would have to be revised because of subsequent research and evidence, because basically sociobiology is not accepted as a legitimate research project in the circumstances where it is most often applied. (See below,) The reason for my basic agreement with these range of critics is that they are mainly attacking the over-generalization of the theory and not the basic project itself. For myself, I am very suspicious of any theory that tries to explain the behavioral "choices" (for lack of any other word) of any living organism. On the most basic level, as Chomsky has often pointed out, we don't know how or why a bee "decides" to go in one direction rather than another. It is certainly vaulting ambition to think that we can explain human choices when we can't even explain basic bee behavior.
But what I don't understand is how you can make a statement such as the following: Sociobiology "deals with history and society, not only the animal world, from which it generalizes about human affairs -- in the most reductionistic fashion." I don't understand this statement. It matches very little of what I have read. Is this statement only meant to comprehend the limited cases when sociobiology is applied to homo sapiens sapiens? I suspect so, since you mention history but other things you say make me suspect that you reject sociobiology wholesale.
This is what I am sure of: All of sociobiology deals with the animal world. Practically all of it deals with the non-primate animal world.
A large proportion of it deals with the social insects, which I am particularly interested in. I don't know what proportion of sociobiology deals with primates and what proportion of sociobiology deals with social insects but I would guess that a much greater proportion of sociobiology deals with the social insects than with primates. For the most part, sociobiology as a project and research program is argued over and disagreed with, interpretations are made, evidence accepted and discarded, conclusions accepted and rejected; some interpretations of the whole project are rejected and some are accepted on a contingent basis. But in most areas of investigation sociobiology is looked at as a legitimate and fruitful research project.
For some reason you think that the research project sociobiology has developed into is not scientific. You say "It is NOT scientific, but speculative and idealistic in a perverse way. It's generalizations are all over-generalizations, not circumscribed by 'evidence'." I don't know how you have come to this conclusion. Is it because of the ideological over-generalizations often made by Pinker and E.O.Wilson when applying their project to our own species? Is your statement only meant to pertain to applications of sociobiology to human affairs? Or in your view does this statement that sociobiology is "speculative and idealistic in a perverse way" and "not circumscribed by evidence" meant to apply to all aspects of the sociobiological research projects?
Maybe I misunderstand you. If I do then please explain. But it seems to me that you only reject sociobiology for political reasons, not on its own merits.
Sincerely, Jerry Monaco
On 5/31/06, Louis Kontos <lkontos at mac.com> wrote:
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> I hope Doug will forgive my fourth, I believe, post for today. I don't usually post several times in one day, but lately I've been looking distractions from work, and this is the best outlet (mea culpa). The problem I have with Jerry's post, framed as a query, is that sociobiology is never, not in a single instance, content with 'showing cause' in regard to simple behavior. (1) It deals with history and society, not only the animal world, from which it generalizes about human affairs -- in the most reductionistic fashion. (2) It is NOT scientific, but speculative and idealistic in a perverse way. It's generalizations are all over-generalizations, not circumscribed by 'evidence'. (3) It attaches itself to 'quantum chemistry' and other 'hard' sciences in order to validate the most ideologically naive/ regressive postulates imaginable. What sociobiology has to do with chemistry (quantum or just plain ordinary) is beyond me. (4) all science IS deterministic, which is not to say that either sociobiology or evolutionary psychology are scientific. Science has its place in human affairs, e.g., in making its discoveries, insights, speculations, theories, etc., available to people (in various capacities, e.g., people who seek to kill millions of people, or destroy the earth, or create democracy-- whatever) who make decisions not on a scientific basis, but otherwise -- e.g., in a principled or unprincipled way, with daring or cowardice, opportunistically or fairly, even against 'objective' interests, etc. Sociobiology is ideology in scientific garb. If it were established science, it's claims would be more circumstanced, and it's relevance could be debated openly and honestly. Instead, it is brought into debate -- like all ideology -- in order to shut it down.
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